The Gears, part garden, part historical assemblage, sits on the edge of a Caltrans parcel along 23rd street between Indiana and Iowa Sts. It offers a tiny green retreat to the acres of MUNI bus yard opposite and the nearby Caltrain tracks and under freeway parking lots.

While excavating in 2009, a developer un-earthed gigantic gears that had been buried for decades, artifacts of the nearby Tubbs Cordage Factory, maker of all the rope for all the ships that plied the west coast in the 1800s. The giant gears were too large and too curious to dispose of. A sliver of overgrown land on 23rd and Iowa was cleared, its retaining wall painted and a local metal worker enlisted to mount the gears on tall posts -- a new Dogpatch totem.

The Green Benefit District provides weekly maintenance to this green space including trash removal, watering, and landscaping. The GBD has added plants and a small Dogpatch “tattoo”.